Gastro Gnome - Eat Better Wherever

Elk back from the taxidermist

Holy smokes. What a sweet bull and awesome mount! I've got low ceilings in my house, so if I'm ever fortunate eniugh to shoot a wall hanger it'll have to be pedestal. Was pedestal a preference or necessity? Either way, looks great!
 
KayakMacGyver said:
Holy smokes. What a sweet bull and awesome mount! I've got low ceilings in my house, so if I'm ever fortunate eniugh to shoot a wall hanger it'll have to be pedestal. Was pedestal a preference or necessity? Either way, looks great!
Click to expand...
After seeing the taxidermists work and talking about it with the boss (wife) I decided to do the pedestal to put in our living room downstairs. Our upstairs could fit a normal shoulder mount but we’d have to move things around. I told my wife I’ll save that upstairs space for a bigger one if I’m ever fortunate enough to do that!
 
Sweet bull. I literally can't get enough of nice clean symmetrical 6x6's with ivory tips.

Any hunt details floating around?
 
twsnow18 said:
Sweet bull. I literally can't get enough of nice clean symmetrical 6x6's with ivory tips.

Any hunt details floating around?
Click to expand...
My wife, dad, and I drew as a party for a MT rifle permit. My wife ended up being in the 3rd trimester of pregnancy when rifle season started so unfortunatly she was not able to hunt. My dad and I had found some BLM that looked promising in bow season and saw plenty of sign but no elk. We went back there the 2nd weekend of rifle and saw a bull but we’re unable to get a shot at him. What made it promising was that we didn’t run into any other hunters, so the following weekend we went back. This time we split up, he dropped me off on one end of the BLM chunck and he went 3-4 miles to the other end with the plan of meeting in the middle. Well first light came and went with no elk spotted so I started to work my way east on top of a main ridge. About half hour of taking my time walking I jumped a 5pt bull that took off 80 yards from me and headed south.

I kept staying on top of the ridge and thought I’d probably seen the only elk I’d see that day. Well, probably quarter of a mile later something caught my eye in front of me about 500 yards....elk! Quick check with the binos confirmed it was a bull. If I kept on my same path I was going to be exposed so I dropped off on the north side of the ridge to get out of sight and get closer. I went about 300 yards and slowly crept back up to the top of the ridge to check my position. I could see that there were multiple bulls and there was a patch of timber blocking them from me, but there was an opening that they were feeding too that’d work if I moved 75 yards to the south. I slowly made my way and then dropped in my tracks when I saw the first bull feeding in the opening. He was 175 yards. I got him in my scope and he was a 5pt. With this permit, this early in the season, I wasn’t ready to shoot a 5 point and I knew there were more bulls in the group. He fed through the opening and then a decent 6 point fed out. He was a good bull that I normally wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger on, but I had shot an almost identical looking bull in 2017, and it was my first day hunting and I had the entire following week off of work. I was almost positive that there were more bulls, but couldn’t see any. The 6pt was just standing in this opening, probably 10 yards wide, feeding and not really moving much. After about 5 minutes, there was a rifle shot from a long ways off, at least a mile, but it got the elks attention and the 5pt and 6pt both rose their heads and were looking towards the shot.

Shortly after the shot, I saw the tips above the trees of another bull coming towards the two bulls in the opening. I saw the 4th,5th, and 6th points of his left side and flipped the safety off as I knew I didn’t need to see more to know he was a shooter. The other 2 bulls had cleared the opening and he fed out and stopped right in the middle and started feeding. One shot at 175 yards with my 300WSM and I knew it was a solid hit. He took off about 15 yards, then stopped. He was behind another tree and I could only make out his legs through the trees. After what seemed like eternity, but was probably only 15 seconds, I could see him go down. The two bulls that I first saw took off one way, and I caught a flash and heard another 2-3 bulls that were still behind the trees take off the other.

I slowly crept out and moved to my right to get a glimpse of the bull laying there. I knew it was a good one and didn’t want to rush and spook him if he wasn’t dead, so I just sat there for a bit. My phone started ringing and it was my dad calling. “Was that shot yours?”... “Yup...and it’s a good one!” “I’ll be there as soon as I can!”

I finally figured I could go out my hands on him, so I slowly approached him and was finally able to exhale once I tapped him with my barrel and he didn’t move.

As he laid...
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I shot at about 8:15am, and after waiting a while for my dad to arrive, cutting him up, and making hauls back to the truck, we had everything loaded up at about 6:30pm.

It was a day I’ll never forget, and this mount will bring me back to that hunt every single time I look at it.
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Once the final load got back to the truck...
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